All right, all right, thanks for the support guys. Let's begin this, shall we? I will start with the
honorable mentions. These are the albums that I feel that I got to include as these albums are important to me in terms of my musical journey, but I feel that they are not as important as my Top 50.
Foo Fighters – Greatest Hits (2009)Alternative rock, post-grunge, hard rock
So most of us, I think, know who Foo Fighters is. It is the band that Nirvana drummer, Dave Grohl, created after Nirvana disbanded due to Kurt Cobain’s death. Grohl claims, I believe, during the time mourning on Cobain’s death for a long time, he just didn’t do anything musically, eventually, he needed to get out of the funk and do something and thus did a new project which eventually became the biggest modern rock band of our time (I like to think that).
Anywho, I know, I know. Yes, putting a greatest hits album anywhere in a top 50 album thread, even if it’s in the honorable mentions section seems to be a bit of a cop-out and, with fair reasoning, I will agree with that. However, as a guy that discovered Foo Fighters through the radio and the hits, well, this seems to be an easy way to get more into them, plus there is method of madness of putting it here. As for the album, it’s what it is billed as. A compilation of their biggest radio songs from their 6 albums at the time (Everlong, Learn to Fly, All My Life, Best of You, The Pretender, etc.) with some songs that didn’t make it to an official album release (Skin and Bones, Wheels, and Word Forward). With that stated, now to explain why putting this album has meaning to me.
Aside from having their well-known songs on the album, they made two new songs just for this release: Wheels and Word Forward. Now, when reflecting through life and all, I think Wheels may be one of the most influential song to me in life. Wheels is a pretty introspective song that would relate well to someone that felt that they accomplish the things that they always wanted and when they got it, what's the next step for them? It reflects times in life where I've done what I want to do and then things go a tad stale with how life is going and there may be a sense of complacent, and then I go, "now what?" Makes sense with these lyrics, ”
Well I wanted something better man. I wished for something new. And I wanted something beautiful. And wish for something true. Been lookin' for a reason man. Something to lose.” Maybe I am still searching for something that is better or new or something with meaning. Sure, it may not be one of the better Foo Fighters songs among the fanbase in their catalog, but Wheels holds the most meaning to me, so for that, that’s why I put Greatest Hits on it and yeah, it’s an easy outlet to get people into Foo Fighters.
Favorites:
Learn to Fly,
Best of You,
Times Like These,
Long Road to Ruin, and
WheelsLindsey Stirling – Shatter Me (2014)Classical crossover, EDM
Ahhh, so I went from Foo Fighters to Lindsey Stirling, ehhh. How did I get there? Well, for those that do not know, Lindsey Stirling is a violinist. She was on America’s Got Talent, but got her name value through making Youtube Videos. Her style, from what I can tell, is a mixture of incorporating violin sounds with the modern EDM vibe. Now, I will admit. EDM seems like something that is not for me. The wub-wub or the beats or other sounds seems a little too scary for me, as a guy that is accustomed to guitars, bass, drums, sometimes keyboards, but Lindsey Stirling pulls off the style well. Plus, she likes to incorporate more of showmanship performer flair, moving around, choreographed dancing as she is playing the violin in her videos and in her live shows.
So how did I hear of her music? Well, like most things regarding me discovering music, I heard about Lindsey Stirling through another band that I like. In this case, the band would be Halestorm. I heard that Lzzy Hale, Halestorm’s vocalist, did lead vocals for a song from Lindsey Stirling called
Shatter Me. I took a listen at it, just for a curio, liked what I hear even if it seems foreign to me, and decided to take a listen to Stirling’s album since I am at that stage now, where I’m willing to listen to other stuff outside of the ballpark than what I am accustomed to.
Aside from two songs, Shatter Me and We Are Giants, sang by Dia Frampton, the rest of the album is instrumental. Now for me, hearing a mostly instrumental album is actually tougher to get into than I thought it would be, since I can identify a song more on vocal melodies and lyrics than other aspects. With that in mind, the album-listening experience was pleasant, to say the least, and maybe it was due to the instrumentals that made the listening a breeze to go through. That stated, as a guy that used to play World of Warcraft, I would have enjoyed something like this to listen on occasions to while grinding it out, which makes not surprising that some of the Twitch.tv streamers, I watch, have Lindsey Stirling songs playing on their playlist.
Favorites: It’s mostly an instrumental album, I cannot really identify some good favorites, so check out the whole album if you want to relax or something, but check out
Shatter Me and
We Are Giants.
Got one more honorable mention to state, but I will get to that tomorrow.